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Talk:Ring Station (TV)/@comment-37765878-20190109014713
AlbertEpstein, as I understand the incident through the TV Show, Holden told the Investigator that he did not believe he had "reopened" the gates out of sympathy for mankind and the Investigator replied he needed to hitch a ride to find out what happened to his masters (so Holden believed it was the Investgator who opened all the other gates, and he didn't deny it). What puzzles me though: The Station was clever enough to realize an iminent threat and meddle with the speed-limit accordingly; it's also clever enough to realize that other entities have entered its sphere of influence and to distinguish between friend and foe with a set of rules that are largely unkown. But it's too dumb to distinguish between a fusion reactor, that powers an interplanetary spaceship, and a fusion bomb which is an offensive system. Given the fact that a spaceship is way more complex than a fusion bomb, these two systems don't seem even remotely alike. And: The protomolecule that created the sol gate could replicate thinking minds (like Julie or Miller), but the station, that is several orders of magnitude more complex than a single proto-molecule, was unable to incorporate or generate a thinking mind when needed? It was set to be stupid and acting mindlessly against eveything "fusion"? And if fusion is deemed as a threat: Why didn't the station take action and destroyed the Roci the moment it entered its sphere of influence? And: Why should it stop deeming the ships as a threat just because they turned off their reactors - nothing stops them from reigniting the fusion and being a perceived threat once again (but it did not act upon the reactivation of the ships reactor cores)? What actually changed by turning them off? What has become less of a threat with a turned off system that is dynamic enough to be controled by its users? Is it too stupid to realize the reactors can be turned on and off on purpose (which does not diminish the preceived threat the station seems to see in such systems in any way)? And the warships, that still have a large amount of fusion and tactical nuclear bombs onboard, are now perceived as not a threat as opposed to the non-offensive systems, like the reactors, which were deemed a mortal threat? I find all this hard to believe. Even today, we can create IFF systems that are acting more clever than the ringstation did in the Show. This is among the larger omissions of The Expanse series (books and show): The lack of intelligent AI's. It is unrealistic that mankind wouldn't have figured out a way to create an artificial general intelligence in the 24th century (presumably the century The Expanse takes place). If it is really possible, a turingrade (which means: human level of intelligence) AI will emerge between the 2030's and the 2050's. A superturing AI (one order of magnitude more intelligent than the most intelligent human ever / increments of 10) with the toposophic level of 2 (humans and Cetaceans are T1) could reasonably emerge between the 2060's and up to the end of the century. T3 AI's may occure much later, because a Moon Brain (a supercomputer the mass of the earth moon) is probably needed to provide the complexity for a T3 AI mind (they're not as dangerous as you might think now, because they think very slow due to light lag inside this massively complex computersystem). Even higher Toposophic Levels are doable (Jupiter Brains, stellar class Matrioshka Brains; Black Hole Brains, etc). All this will happen one way or another... but it was not displayed in the Expanse. The Roci's AI isn't any more clever than Samsung's Bixby nowadays (I would even say that Bixby is more intelligent than the Roci's AI system). This really is my biggest critical point about The Expanse, because it's just unrealistic to omit this practically inevitable development of computertechnology. This is kind of sad, because the topic of AI minds, and the potentially severe consequences for mankind having to deal with an entitiy that is exceedingly more intelligent than a human, is fascinating... one that is almost entirely unexplored with The Expanse.